Iowahawk said something yesterday (which he's said before, but he reminded me of it yesterday) about The New Yorker's cartoons.

You know those drab, vague watercolor black-and-white cartoons skewered on Seinfeld for never making any sense?

Iowahawk proposed that every New Yorker cartoon -- every one -- could be made funnier by replacing its caption with:

Is it true? Well let's test this proposition under strict laboratory conditions. Let's do Science. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:47 AM | Comments (337)
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Andy Borowitz is not funny.

In fact, Andy Borowitz is legendarily unfunny. Andy Borowitz is so unfunny that, despite being a liberal who makes all the right liberal jokes about all the right conservative targets, a guy at Salon named Alex Pareene who is himself unfunny still called Andy Borowitz out for not being funny:

Andy Borowitz makes dad jokes for self-satisfied liberals. If you think Sarah Palin is stupid and Mitt Romney is rich, Andy Borowitz has some jokes that will decidedly not challenge a single one of your prior assumptions!

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This material is designed to elicit a smirk of recognition and agreement from your average polite NPR listener.

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Here’s the patented Andy Borowitz Joke-Generation Formula: Step 1: Take the single most obvious and most commonly remarked-upon trait of a public figure. Step 2: Lightly tweak figure for said trait. Take, for example, this vintage Borowitz Report laffer from 2004: “Flip-flopping may have injured Kerry’s shoulder.” Haha, get it? Oh, sometimes there is a Step 3: Mash up the news figure story with a popular culture reference, for added hilarity. Like, what if Saddam Hussein had a brother named Jermaine who defended him on “The Larry King Show”??

Andy Levy horrified people yesterday when he Tweeted, without warning, an Andy Borowitz "humor" piece from the New Yorker, just because he's a dirty son of a bitch and wants you to hate your life as much as he hates his own.

The piece is about the Pope. It's irreverent, but I wouldn't say it's cruel to the Pope. But what is is offensive, because it is gratuitously, nearly pornographically unfunny.

Oakland Rapper Pope Emeritus Threatens Lawsuit

Posted by Andy Borowitz

OAKLAND (The Borowitz Report)—

The Vatican’s plan to call the retiring pontiff Benedict XVI “Pope Emeritus” hit a snag today, in the form of a threatened lawsuit by an Oakland-based rapper who has been recording under that name since 2006.

“I don’t care who he is, I ain’t let nobody mess with my brand,” said Mr. Emeritus, who prior to 2006 recorded under the name Notorious P.O.P.E.

While the Vatican said it was unaware that Mr. Emeritus had already claimed the name seven years ago, the Oakland rapper scoffed at that idea: “They should have done what I did before I picked it out: Google it.”

Furious at what he is calling a clear case of trademark infringement, Mr. Emeritus said that he has no intention of stepping aside for the former pontiff: “He’s the one who should step aside. Call himself P. Biddy or something. This is wack, yo.”

Well, I mean, you can imagine the possibilities that flow from that kernel of a comedic premise. Here's the Pope saying "This is wack, yo." I mean, that's funny, because the Pope don't talk like that at all! In fact he mostly speaks in German and Latin.

So it's a mischievous juxtaposition of two incongruous things! And that's funny!!!

Or not. Note by the way how much he plasters his name and "The Borowitz Report" all over this. He wouldn't want anyone stealing his funny jokes.

Iowahawk started something called "BorowitzComedySkool," tweeting Borowitz-like comedy bits, and I joined, as did others. I'll just quote mine and direct you to Twitchy for the rest.

I can't just send you to Twitchy because they censored me, the Monsters.

Though I can understand why. You'll understand their reasoning. more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:48 PM | Comments (305)
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Today is the anniversary of Andrew's death.

Two days ago, his mother died.

Arlene was a loving and devoted wife, mother, grandmother and friend. She was also a pioneer, having been the first female trust officer made vice president at Bank of America.

A year of loss for the Breitbart family. I'm not a praying man but I'll make an exception.

Andrew was fond of telling me he "only read the comments" here. He liked me, but he loved you guys.

The largest compliment Breitbart could give someone was, "He's a warrior." All men respect guts, and Breitbart more than most men.

I think on this anniversary of his death we should honor him -- and ourselves -- by seeking to be Warriors. And not just in politics, though certainly that was where Breitbart encouraged it the most frequently.

Breitbart himself lived a brave life, confident in himself, always questioning and always questing. He made himself bigger than life by living as outrageously as he could.

He always had big plans -- Breitbart notoriously had five other plans cooking on his stove when he was talking to you about one -- and I think he had an idea, intuitively perhaps, but perhaps arrived at by conscious probing, that there's more to life that what we're given.

Politically he revolted openly at the media-Democratic prison -- he wasn't here to meekly take the scraps the media-Democratic complex had seen fit to offer, he was here to demand his right to a proper meal.

And I think that sense informed every part of him. He wasn't on this earth to take what little the material world was offering him; he was here to insist upon more.

He was a big man, but his spirit was gigantic.

There aren't many like him. The world couldn't hold too many like him.

He would have made an outstanding Pirate.

I like to imagine that somewhere in the next world, Andrew's causing someone some amount of trouble.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:00 AM | Comments (235)
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Without bothering to link the article, their headline is:

Anonymous Source Informs Bob Woodward He Hasn't Been Relevant In 40 Years

I can think of someone else of declining relevance.

Anyone remember the last time you got sent an Onion article or video?

The last time you saw them linked on a blog?

Been a little while, eh?

I don't keep up with such things but a while ago someone commented on their decline, telling me it was his belief that a lot of the funnier writers chose not to move to Chicago, preferring to stay in New York, back when they moved offices to reduce costs.

It's been a long time since they were funny. The Onion's not even on my radar anymore. You know what part of the Onion I read? The AV Club. To see what I missed on a TV show.

That said, they annoyed me, so I wrote these.

Top Ten Headlines Rejected By The Onion

10. The Onion's Management Reports "Modest Success" with New Non-Humor Format

9. Area Man Remembers Last Funny Onion Article He Read, Then Remembers It Was Actually Something His Brother Said About Either Boobs or Mexicans

8. The Onion Losing Top Writers to Poaching By Reddit, Etsy, and the United States Postal Service

7. Producer Admits That Shelved Idea of an "Onion TV Show" Now Seems "Pretty Fucking Stupid, When You Think About It"

6. The Onion Staff Said To Handle Declining Career Prospects with Grace, Prescription Back Medication

5. Local Editor at The Onion Really Thinking About Getting His Real Estate License "or Just Taking to the Rails to Really See America"

4. Embarrassed Onion Writer Explains to Friend "All My Really Good Stuff Goes Into My Novel & Pinterest Account"

3. The Onion Publishing Imprint Proudly Announces Coming Book, "The Idiot's Guide to Total Creative Exhaustion"

2. Bitter Onion Writer Overheard Muttering Darkly About Being "Led Astray" by Alcohol, Clown College

...and the Number One Headline Rejected by the Onion...

1. Local Man Informed He Will Die of AIDS Unless He Reads the Last Three Years of The Onion Cover-to-Cover

UPDATE: Local Man Dies of AIDS

Posted by: Ace at 06:45 AM | Comments (329)
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Because the ONT's principal weapon is surprise and a fanatical devotion to the clock.

Gun Talk with Joe Biden: This Week's Episode - Handling Unwanted Strangers

I did one of these town-hall meetings on the Internet and one guy said, "Well, what happens when the end days come? What happens when there's the earthquake? I live in California, and I have to protect myself."

I said, "Well, you know, my shotgun will do better for you than your AR-15, because you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door."

Yes this is the man that Obama picked to be his second in command. Should the unthinkable happen I'm guessing that a President Biden would soon make history as the first president to be impeached for sheer stupidity.

Also: Biden and the Oscar Pistorius School of Self-Defense

Posted by: Maetenloch at 04:40 PM | Comments (968)
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...and he's doing that, of course, because when the sequester comes, and yet the sun still rises, he'll take a hit to his credibility.

Posted by: Ace at 03:53 PM | Comments (166)
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Meet Kenneth Fulmer:

Mr. Fulmer didn't take kindly to the gesture, as The Smoking Gun reports:

...when Fulmer returned home drunk, he began arguing with his father and subsequently “battered” the pensioner “with a cookie cake,” according to a sheriff’s report.

Specifically, investigators charge, Fulmer smashed the cake over the head of his father, who was “covered in the cookie cake” when Deputy Heath Balkom arrived at the home in response to a disorderly person call.

I wish I had something with more comedic potential, but hey. There you go.

Posted by: CAC at 02:42 PM | Comments (173)
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...but Obama has changed his opinion on gay marriage again, and again in the leftwing direction, towards that 1995 questionnaire position he's always claimed he never really believed.

Just a few months ago, he said he wanted to leave the issue to the states; now that he's past the election, he wants it federalized, and imposed on the states.

Posted by: Ace at 01:45 PM | Comments (326)
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It's a 30 minute long filmed seizure of an epileptic who isn't funny.

End of file. more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:03 PM | Comments (125)
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Oh, so it's usually worse?

NBC, huh? Delta House of Obama Propaganda.

Mark Murray, NBC News senior political editor, appeared on MSNBC with Craig Melvin in Thursday where he offered his thoughts on the ongoing war between Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward and the White House. Murray said the letter that Woodward received was, in his experience, one of the “nicest brushback” emails a reporter has ever received. “It wasn’t much of a threat at all,” he opined.

Noah C. Rothman wrote an excellent essay on this matter, and suggests that Woodward had ever reason to take the White House's threat as a threat, because they'd similarly gone to war against FoxNews.

So when they say "You'll regret this," they are not speaking abstractly. They have a plan they put into place when someone reports something they don't like.

Now, the media of course said nothing about the War on Fox, but perhaps that's excusable, as, being archliberals, they buy the spin that Fox News is a propaganda arm for conservatives.

But now this same battleplan is being used against Bob Woodward. One cannot help but think it's not the "conservative bias" that so incenses the White House -- it's simply that a reporter reports a Fact they White House doesn't want the public to know.

And will the media come to Woodward's defense? He says No, and I've been saying the same thing.

Who came up with the sequester and when does not enjoy quite the scandalous magnitude that the Watergate break in did. Secondly, Woodward will need powerful and influential allies in traditional media to speak up for his integrity. He will not find them.

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Without a doubt, Woodward’s status as a canonized saint of modern journalism will impose a crisis of conscience on America’s Fourth Estate. He is holding up a mirror to the institution of journalism, and the reflection is an ugly one. It is one that America’s reporters will turn from – the truth is too painful.

When they came for Fox, they did not stand up because they did not work for Fox. The media’s lot is now well and truly cast with the administration – their fates are linked. Whatever his contribution to journalism, Bob Woodward will soon find that no single reporter is irreplaceable. "

The penny-ante leukocytes, the no-account Warrior Cells of the liberal governmental-media Hive-Body have surrounded the impurity in the system and are in the process of destroying it.

Apparently there was no threat, and yet the threat has been executed nevertheless.

And Let's Not Forget the Primary Lie That Prompted the Secondary Threat: Brit Hume: Woodward's sin was exposing "big whoppers" the Administration told on the sequester.

There are several lies Woodward has exposed:

1. Obama, despite the media blitz to blame the GOP, actually conceived of and proposed the sequester.

2. Obama, despite now claiming that tax increases must be part of the deal to avoid the sequester, agreed last year that only spending cuts would constitute the plan to avoid the sequester. Thus, he's "moved goalposts" yet again.

3. Obama does not in fact have to release illegal aliens or cancel ship deployments due to the sequester -- he's doing these things by choice, for political purposes.

Posted by: Ace at 11:22 AM | Comments (262)
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